Tear down wall to Louisville's West End

As a Louisville native, growing up in Louisville as a girl, I have fond memories of riding the Broadway bus from Wallace Avenue off Taylorsville Road all the way down Broadway to Fountain Ferry park in the deep West End. I loved the smell of sawdust on the ground, and the thrill of the ferris wheel and Hall of Mirrors. I would save my 50-cent allowance and go with a couple of girlfriends and spend an afternoon. (My allowance was usually augmented by a dollar or so from my Dad.)

I also loved Walnut Street as a girl. Lots of shops, lots of food places, and Joe's Palm Room when I hit my later teens. Wonderful music, all gone after Urban Renewal (Urban Removal to the black citizens with businesses there).

So it's been a long time that the West End has had the sparkle and the down hominess it used to have. Urban Renewal "done it in."

Thus it was with latent anger and sincere disappointment that I read Louisville Magazine's new edition featuring memories of the "old" West End. The new one might as well be cordoned off by a Berlin Wall a la' Louisville to keep our races from mixing. I was actually had this conversation with a male friend who picked me up at 4th and Muhammad (formerly Walnut) for lunch.

"Where do you want to go?" he asked. "Jay's," I said. I loved their fried chicken. "Where is it," he asked? "18th and Muhammad Ali," I replied. "I am not going down there: it's dangerous!" Jay's, dangerous? This friend had a PhD but a grade school attitude about the West End from many many white people who think the West End is scary. If by scary, they mean "strange" it's their own fault for self-restricting their movements in their home town. If it's scary it's because latent racism has taken hold of the grey matter we call a brain.

The West End's bad rep has been encouraged over the years by realtors and businessmen who walled off a large portion of Louisville where land and housing could go cheap. If it went at all. I think of it as a kind of White Magic.

You know, where the magician puts a red handkerchief in his pocket and pulls our a white one in its place. but our elected officials over the years haven't had such a great record of paying attention to this part of town.

Louisville Magazine shines a bright light on this part of our sordid history. It's been a long time coming, and it is long past attending to a section of town with hundreds of vacant lots, boarded up homes and damaged streets. We are a generous people when it comes to generosity to people just like us. The people in the West End are people just like us: only their skin color is different. Time to get some major changes going in its direction. City Hall, the Metro Council, local churches, and all of us pushing together can make change happen.

Like our once President said to his Russian counterpart, "Tear down that wall, Mr. Gorbachov."

SUZY POST

Louisville 40206

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Tear down wall to Louisville's West End

As a Louisville native, growing up in Louisville as a girl, I have fond memories of riding the Broadway bus from Wallace Avenue off Taylorsville Road all the way down Broadway to Fountain Ferry park